The New Year, So Far!

I haven't been writing as much as I promised myself I would. Mostly it's because my characters are going off onto paths I didn't know were there! The typical bad boy hero is revealing more layers every day, and my heroine is not the bluestocking, unaware-of-life-around-her type I first saw. A real friendship is developing between Jared and Devlina, making it harder for me to part them! Here is a peek at what they're up to:

He was deliberately taunting her. She would be well justified for slapping him across his smug face, but Lord Clayton’s emerald green eyes appeared in her mind as if the man himself stood  in the perfumed garden. Mr. Vickers might be her last chance for happiness, so she would swallow her pride.

“I wish to take lessons from you.”

He cocked a thick black eyebrow, resembling a gypsy she had once seen at a fair when she was a child. He’d swallowed a sword before her very eyes. Mr. Vickers looked as if he, too, possessed strange and fascinating skills.

“Lessons in what subject? Fencing? Riding? Not Latin, surely. I spent my university days involved in everything but schoolwork.”

“Not any of those.” She frowned. “I do not know how to ask this delicately, but you are not a man for whom delicacy could be a factor.”

“You know so much about me.”

“Your reputation precedes you, sir.”

“What do you know about me?”

Couples strolled by, out of sight from the protection of the rose bower, but their controlled laughter and easy conversations reached Devlina. Imagine. This time next year, it could be Neville…Lord Clayton…walking beside me. She had to go through with her plan, regardless how reckless it seemed now.

“I have heard many stories of your exploits. I do not wish to be one of your conquests, but seek your..." She cleared her throat delicately. "Expertise. I gathered you would be the right man for what I need.” His eyebrows rose so high upon his forehead she feared she'd shocked him. Him. She twisted her hands in the folds of her silk gown. “That did not come out the way I meant.”

“I think it’s exactly what you meant to say, Miss Carrow. And, while I am greatly - no, flattered is not the word....”

“I spoke hastily.” She interrupted him before he could continue on his appalling train of thought. It would serve her right if Miranda found her now, debasing herself in front of a man who was known for ruining the reputations of countless females this season and the last.

“Lessons.”

“Yes. I…” She drew a breath louder than she’d intended. The man was positively irritating. Heaven only knew what so many women apparently saw in him to have ruined their prospects by even the smallest acquaintance. “I would like you to teach me how to seduce a man.”

Her whispered words seemed to clamor through the garden as if she’d tolled them with a gong.

I hope you enjoy this peek at my work in progress! It is book one of an exciting new Regency-set series I hope to complete this year. I hope all of you are reaching your own goals for the New Year!

Happy Birthday, Jane Austen! 236 years young!

I hope my readers and fellow authors adore the incomparable Jane as much as I do. Her novels (along with the Bronte sisters' Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre) sparked the romance genre that we all know and love today. If you haven't read Emma or Pride and Prejudice yet, do your heart a favor and start reading! The movies of the books are all wonderful, but my favorite is the Keira Knightley version.

My current "work in progress" is a Pride and Prejudice-based novel, and in honor of Miss Austen as well as begging her pardon, I'm giving you a sneak peek at one of the scenes. Hope you enjoy it!

     She closed her eyes, exhaling on the window so that her breath bounced back into her mouth, as warm as his had been. Confusion swirled through her, igniting all variety of emotion. She’d sensed a connection between them. Somehow, beyond the difference in their ages and stations, not to mention life experiences, she’d felt a kinship. As if she’d known him all her life.

     Nonsensical dreaming was all it was. Girlish fantasy and listening to Lucinda’s romantic nonsense. That was the source behind her confusing thoughts. She suddenly did something she had never done before in her life.

     “Frederick,” she whispered. Her lips relished the shape of his name, the way they parted on the consonants, as if preparing for a kiss. Her tongue pressed the back of her teeth on the d. Her breath misted the glass as she spoke his name, and she stared at it until it evaporated.

     Though she wasn’t the least bit sleepy, she climbed into bed beside Lucinda, pulling the quilt up to her chin. Colonel Parker had offered her a solitary room at the start of her visit, but she, who had always shared a room with her younger sisters, found the large, drafty house a little frightening at night. She scooted close to Lucinda, taking some comfort in her friend’s sleepy warmth.

     Lucinda mumbled in her sleep. The sweet tones of the pianoforte filtered through the closed door and the layers of carpeted floors and walls. It was a variation of his symphony. She wondered if he thought of his former love as he played.

     It was too much to think that a man such as he would ever consider playing for a simple country girl like herself.